Spook, I'm sorry that the topic got so out of hand. So IMO if your turkeys are still out there Spook, and they do breed with wild turkeys, and those poults survive the strong odds against them, which is a lot of ands, you shouldn't feel guilty! So, aside from the fact that your turkeys are gone and that is not good for you because you no longer have them, no I don't think you should worry about the wilds but yes you are perfectly welcome to worry over the fate of your turkeys.
I am with you in that I think that a couple of domestic turkeys breeding into the wild pop is not going to be the end all of wild turkeys everywhere! Not to mention, your turkeys were narries (right?) which I have learned are a cross between an EW and a RP anyways. So IF they did breed into the wild population the babies would be 3/4 EW and subsequent generations would erase all trace of the other half that your turkeys brought in. Not to mention that in researching RPs I discovered that they are genetically the closest to the EW turkey. I'm sure wild and domestic turkeys have mixed millions of times in all the history of turkey keeping in the US and yet, they are still out there.
That said, before you all jump on me, I'm not saying that domestic breeding with wild is necessarily a good thing,l I'm just saying that it would not destroy all the wild genetics unless it was happening everywhere all the time. Two loose turkeys with clipped wings is not going to hurt a huge wild population.
If someone has a problem with my opinion please contact me via PM and I would be happy to debate it with you. I'm not trying to start a fight but with everything I have learned in the past few weeks about domestic turkeys and all I already knew about wild ones this is what I have decided for myself.
I am with you in that I think that a couple of domestic turkeys breeding into the wild pop is not going to be the end all of wild turkeys everywhere! Not to mention, your turkeys were narries (right?) which I have learned are a cross between an EW and a RP anyways. So IF they did breed into the wild population the babies would be 3/4 EW and subsequent generations would erase all trace of the other half that your turkeys brought in. Not to mention that in researching RPs I discovered that they are genetically the closest to the EW turkey. I'm sure wild and domestic turkeys have mixed millions of times in all the history of turkey keeping in the US and yet, they are still out there.
That said, before you all jump on me, I'm not saying that domestic breeding with wild is necessarily a good thing,l I'm just saying that it would not destroy all the wild genetics unless it was happening everywhere all the time. Two loose turkeys with clipped wings is not going to hurt a huge wild population.
If someone has a problem with my opinion please contact me via PM and I would be happy to debate it with you. I'm not trying to start a fight but with everything I have learned in the past few weeks about domestic turkeys and all I already knew about wild ones this is what I have decided for myself.
